Salon's Manjoo Defends Bush with Weak Arguments

[Shalom]

I sent the e-mail below the editor of Salon regarding the "Presidential Debate" between Greg Palast and Farhad Manjoo regarding whether Bush stole Ohio:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/11/16/palast/

Letter to Editor, Salon
RE:

In his debate with Greg Palast, Mr. Manjoo argues that even with a generous estimate of uncounted Kerry votes, that Bush still wins Ohio by 26,000 votes.

First of all, if this were indeed Bush's margin of victory, it would be less than 1/2 %, which would make one consider whether a state-wide recount would be necessary to decide who really won.

Secondly, Manjoo totally ignores the impact of voters who never made it to the polls due to Mr. Blackwell's actions: the chilling effect of allowing citizen "poll watchers", and the fact that inadequate facilites were provided in poor and minority neighborhoods. It is easy to contemplate that this could lose Mr. Kerry 100,000 votes across the state.

It is true that Palast cannot prove that Mr. Kerry won Ohio, and hence the presidency. However, the truth is that Mr. Manjoo cannot really prove Mr. Bush really won Ohio, and the presidency. As such, Bush is really no more legitimate in 2004 with Ohio than he was in 2000 with Florida, except that this time it looks like he will not have to invoke his friends on the Surpreme Court.

[vi5]

1. Oh brother. I read that piece. I'd hardly say he "defends Bush"..

..as much as he just doesn't see any solid evidence of foul play. Which you pretty much admit that Palast doesn't have either.

It's the old proving a negative thing.

[Shalom]

2. If It Stinks to High Heaven, It is Foul

So in your book, intimidating minority voters, and making them stand in line for 6 hours, is no evidence of "foul play" ?

I suppose you bought Katherine Harris' arguments in 2000 that there was no foul play in Florida either.

[vi5]

5. Well if someone is intimidated and doesn't file charges...

Then what exactly are we to do about it? How do you prove it? If there are that many people who fell victim to it, it should be easy to prove it in a class action lawsuit under the voting rights act or some such thing.

[On the Road]

3. Greg Palast Has Disappointed Me This Election

in 2000, he had tons of detailed research on the felon purge and lots of other Republican shenannigans. This election all he can do is say the total of spoiled and provisional ballots is greater than the margin.

Kerry could indeed win if those are counted and a very large percentage are judged valid and go to Kerry. That is indeed possible. But that's not what Palast is saying.

[althecat]

4. Dear Mr Manjoo,

Dear Mr Manjoo, regarding your comments on the Exit Poll

Dear Mr Manjoo,

I have been reading your reports on vote tampering for a couple of
years and appreciate what you have been doing greatly. However
there is one point in your latest article that concerns me. You state
in your latest article that we do not have exit poll data that is useful
for comparison.

But we do. We have this data...

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm

Which was also used by Dr Stephen Freeman

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/pdfs/TheUEPDv00l.pdf

Perhaps more to the point - why did the NYT rely on an analysis (
the CALTECH/MIT report - which the authors have now admitted
was based on the data that you have correctly pointed out is
useless) to debunk this theory.

I know we don't have the real data. But the NYT as a subscriber to
the exit polls does.

At the very least I would have thought that you would be calling for
the release of the real data. As David Dill has.

regards
Alastair THompson
Scoop NZ